April 12, 2008

Today we are celebrating the birthdays of two great friends, and I am sharing this poem with them here, which I think is a lovely reminder of the sacredness of each day. I thought you all would enjoy it as well... It is by one of my new favorites, John O'Donohue, who serendipitously came into my life just when I needed him. Note: The photo tryptic is from Burren, John O'Donohue's homeland on the coast of Ireland.

The Inner History of a DayBy John O’Donohue

No one knew the name of this day;Born quietly from deepest night,It hid its face in light,Demanded nothing for itself,Opened out to offer each of usA field of brightness that traveled ahead,Providing in time, ground to hold our footstepsAnd the light of thought to show the way.

The mind of the day draws no attention;It dwells within the silence with eleganceTo create a space for all our words,Drawing us to listen inward and outward.

We seldom notice how each day is a holy placeWhere the eucharist of the ordinary happens,Transforming our broken fragmentsInto an eternal continuity that keeps us.

Somewhere in us a dignity presidesThat is more gracious than the smallnessThat fuels us with fear and force,A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanksFor being betrothed to the unknownAnd for the secret workThrough which the mind of the dayAnd wisdom of the soul become one.

April 11, 2008

This is one of my absolutely favorite poems by on of my absolutely favorite writers! Papa D and I had this poem read at our wedding, and re-reading it as the years go by is always poignant. It's as though the truth of it keeps growing. I wish I had a picture of our wedding to include with this post, but we were wed prior to the age of digital cameras, or at least prior to their widespread use. These are pictures from the farm where our wedding was held (the one below was taken from their website, hence the weird edging) and a picture of a wildflower bouquet like mine...

The Country of MarriageBy Wendell Berry

I.

I dream of you walking at night along the streamsof the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongsof birds opening around you as you walk.You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.

II.

This comes after silence. Was it something I saidthat bound me to you, some mere promiseor, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?A man lost in the woods in the dark, I stoodstill and said nothing. And then there rose in me,like the earth's empowering brew risingin root and branch, the words of a dream of youI did not know I had dreamed. I was a wandererwho feels the solace of his native landunder his feet again and moving in his blood.I went on, blind and faithful. Where I steppedmy track was there to steady me. It was no abyssthat lay before me, but only the level ground.

III.

Sometimes our life reminds meof a forest in which there is a graceful clearingand in that opening a house,an orchard and garden,comfortable shades, and flowersred and yellow in the sun, a patternmade in the light for the light to return to.The forest is mostly dark, its waysto be made anew day after day, the darkricher than the light and more blessed,provided we stay braveenough to keep on going in.

IV.

How many times have I come to you out of my headwith joy, if ever a man was,for to approach you I have given up the lightand all directions. I come to youlost, wholly trusting as a man who goesinto the forest unarmed. It is as though I descendslowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peacein you, when I arrive at last.

V.

Our bond is no little economy based on the exchangeof my love and work for yours, so much for so muchof an expendable fund. We don't know what its limits are--that puts us in the dark. We are more togetherthan we know, how else could we keep on discoveringwe are more together than we thought?You are the known way leading always to the unknown,and you are the known place to which the unknown is alwaysleading me back. More blessed in you than I know,I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothingnot belittled by my saying that I possess it.Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessinga man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can onlyaccept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the lightenough to live, and then accepts the dark,passing unencumbered back to the earth, as Ihave fallen time and again from the great strengthof my desire, helpless, into your arms.

VI.

What I am learning to give you is my deathto set you free of me, and me from myselfinto the dark and the new light. Like the waterof a deep stream, love is always too much. Wedid not make it. Though we drink till we burstwe cannot have it all, or want it all.In its abundance it survives our thirst.In the evening we come down to the shoreto drink our fill, and sleep, while itflows through the regions of the dark.It does not hold us, except we keep returningto its rich waters thirsty. We enter,willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.

VII.

I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.I give you the life I have let live for the love of you:a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own lifethat we have planted in the ground, as Ihave planted mine in you. I give you my love for allbeautiful and honest women that you gather to yourselfagain and again, and satisfy--and this poem,no more mine than any man's who has loved a woman.

April 08, 2008

Excuse me for a moment while I gush about Garrison Keillor... I love Prairie Home Companion, and Keillor's wry wit and dryly expressive voice make the show. But I also love his lesser-known NPR contribution, that of the Writer's Almanac. Each day of the week, Keillor does a 5 minute short preceding Terry Gross and her amazing interviews on All Things Considered. He highlights literary milestones of the day: birthdays, deaths, anniversaries of key publications. And he always closes by reading a poem. I love it. I subscribe to the podcast because I'm rarely able to listen at 7 pm, and I've been introduced to a number of great poems and poets by Keillor. Yesterday he read a poem by Donald Hall, our current poet laureate, who is not a new poet to me, as he lives about 5 minutes down the road, and I was raised on The Oxcart Man. This is a new poem that I haven't read before, though. I thought it would be appropriate to share since we recently passed the 5th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq (March 19th) and the grim milestone of the overall US death toll passing 4,000 (March 23rd), not to mention the uncounted Iraqi deaths.

It is unacceptable that fish prey on each other.
For their comfort and safety, we will liberate them
into fishfarms with secure, durable boundaries
that exclude predators. Our care will provide
for their liberty, health, happiness, and nutrition.
Of course all creatures need to feel useful.
At maturity the fish will discover their purposes.

April 06, 2008

Yes, it's true folks! April is National Poetry Month, and though I'm a couple of days late on the draw, I thought it would be worth celebrating. I myself am a lapsed poet, and also a lapsed poetry reader. I thought it would be fun this month to post poems that I love, not every day, but frequently. Perhaps we could start a bit of conversation here, and you readers could share your favorite poems as well, or comment on the various poems I post. I hope to recharge my reading of poetry, and perhaps spark some poetry reading among you all as well!

According to the American Academy of Poets, “National Poetry Month was established by the Academy of American
Poets as a month-long, national celebration of poetry. The concept was
to increase the attention paid-by individuals and the media—to the art
of poetry, to living poets, to our poetic heritage, and to poetry books
and magazines. In the end, we hoped to achieve an increase in the
visibility, presence, and accessibility of poetry in our culture.
National Poetry Month has been successful beyond all anticipation and
has grown over the years into the largest literary celebration in the
world.”

It certainly is lamentable that the reading of poetry has receded from the public life, and now is largely confined to academia. There was a time, not too long ago, where poetry told the story of our common life together. Poetry seems like an absurdly slow way of communicating something in our age of efficiency, but there are truths that cannot be conveyed in 30 second sound bites. Some things are better conveyed in poetry than any other form of communication.

I'll start my project with one of my favorite poems, a classic by Mary Oliver that is speaking to me once again in my current state of--of what? I don't know how to put words around the way I've been feeling the last few weeks, but this poem means a lot to me right now. (See, I told you poetry was necessary!) Enjoy!

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.